Residents speak their minds to P&Z

Justin Pottle

Updated 10:21 pm, Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Several dozen Greenwich residents packed into the Town Hall meeting room Tuesday evening, filling seats and lining walls, in hopes for a chance to weigh in on several prospective changes to the town's zoning regulations and documents. After six months of edits, public hearings and surveys, the final hearing on the Cos Cob Neighborhood Plan took marquee billing at the Planning and Zoning Commission's meeting.

But even following official discussion of that agenda item, the room remained crowded with concerned residents waiting to pounce on proposed alterations to the town's building procedures and flood codes.

"We have to be cognizant of how altering our regulations can allow us to grow," said First Selectman Peter Tesei, who resides near Cos Cob, addressing the crowd.

But hopes that the recommendations would pass with little further discussion and only minor tweaking were quickly dashed as several residents and local land-use leaders aired grievances for several hours.

Notably, the Cos Cob Neighborhood Association did not endorse the Neighborhood Plan, with association director and RTM Land Use Committee Chair Peter Berg asking for another round of edits and a new public hearing. He alleged important inaccuracies in demographics, citing a statistic that the population of Cos Cob had declined in recent years.

"The only time in recorded history when Cos Cob's population dropped was when Dutch soldiers massacred 500 Native Americans, and that was in 1644," Berg said.

Speaking on behalf of the Neighborhood Association, he expressed skepticism at survey results suggesting Cos Cob residents weren't interested in expanding Cos Cob Library, and pledged to get the survey results through the Freedom of Information Act.

The plan seeks to serve as a roadmap for community and commercial development in Cos Cob for years to come, focusing on practical questions balanced with considerations of neighborhood character. It offers recommendations on everything from watershed management and liquor licenses to long-running traffic problems and storefront aesthetics along the neighborhood's main arteries.

But residents took issue with many of the plan's biggest recommendations -- both what they suggested and what they left out, attacking recommended changes to the roads of Cos Cob's central shopping district along Route 1 and to the Mill Pond. Several resident expressed concern that the plan did not address the maintenance of the Mill Pond, which they described as garbage-filled.

"You've considered adding benches and adding boardwalks," said resident Ann Shifman-Diebler, "but I'm very concerned because today the park is not well taken care of by the town. The more you have people using the park, the more you will damage the park, the wildlife and the neighborhood."

But even after the tense Cos Cob Plan agenda item ended, Planning and Zoning wasn't let off the hook. Suggested changes the town's policy toward hiring consultants drew the attention and derision of several residents, including an anonymous group of Greenwich property owners.

"This will incur substantial financial burden to the applicant," said Mara Frankel, executive of the newly formed Greenwich Property Owners, a group lobbying on behalf of residents and business owners. "It's too discretionary and discriminatory toward certain applicants and project."

Homeowners suggested the policy be limited to commercial business or much larger projects -- however, some attacked the change as having the potential to hurt businesses and being prone to abuse.

"This is a cost you should have to assume as good government and good review," said local real estate agent and homeowner Christine Edwards. "We don't want to degrade our ability to do commercial development in town."

The change on the agenda, commission members explained, was merely exploratory, in case the consultant was cut in the upcoming budget. Some suggested bringing the role of a town traffic engineer back to Town Hall, citing the need primarily for traffic consulting. However, the ideas was roundly argued as impractical by the commission, given the increases in costs and the need for independent consultants even when a traffic engineer was held on Town Hall staff.

But for many, it wasn't a black-and-white question -- with limits, the changes could be more palatable.

"If you could be as specific as possible in your intent, it would make a lot of people less anxious," said Riverside resident Theresa Hunt.

As of press time, several more alterations -- including new language in the town's substantial improvements clause and a number of changes related to private business -- had yet to be heard.